


Mary Steenburgen, Eat Your Heart Out

by geneeste



Series: Obscure References [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Humor, Obscure References Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2013-08-30
Packaged: 2017-12-25 03:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/948177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geneeste/pseuds/geneeste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam would run into Mr. O'Neill in the hallways and they'd nod at each other, or she'd run into him in the basement (literally, but it was just the one time) when she had to reset the fuses to get the power back on, or occasionally they’d glance at each other uncomfortably while waiting for the elevator doors to open so that they could climb out and take the stairs. And while it was more of a grunt-and-smile-out-of-obligation relationship, she liked to think they were working their way up to a rapport.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mary Steenburgen, Eat Your Heart Out

**Author's Note:**

> In which Genie manages new heights of silliness and ridiculousness. Really. I'm not joking. Unbeta'd.

Things had been going so well.

Sam would run into Mr. O'Neill in the hallways and they'd nod at each other, or she'd run into him in the basement (literally, but it was just the one time) when she had to reset the fuses to get the power back on, or occasionally they’d glance at each other uncomfortably while waiting for the elevator doors to open so that they could climb out and take the stairs.

And while it was more of a grunt-and-smile-out-of-obligation relationship, she liked to think they were working their way up to a rapport.

That is, until five minutes ago.

She’d been standing in line to get coffee at T’s diner, when she became aware of someone standing very close behind her. She turned quickly and collided with Mr. O’Neill’s nose.

“Oh! Mr. O’Neill, I’m sorry!” For some reason she was more startled at the fact that it was him than the fact he was standing so close.

“No, no, I’m sorry, I, uh…wasn’t paying attention.”

He didn’t really seem like the type to move around a public place without paying attention. And she could have sworn he’d been smelling her hair, but then he didn’t seem like the type to do _that_ either.

Huh.

“Uh…how are you?” She asked, trying to get him to make eye contact.

“Good, good. You?”

“Good.” She nodded. And kept nodding, until she caught herself and forced herself to stop.

She blinked at him as they stood awkwardly, trying to think of something to say. Really, she was just stunned that he was talking to her. As in, attempting to have a real conversation. Face to face. That didn’t consist of, 'hey, can you stop almost blowing up the building?'

He saved her. “Here for lunch?”

“Nah, too early. I’m just here for coffee. Need my hourly jolt, you know.” Jolt? Who _says_ that?

“Ah. Late night?” He looked interested. She didn’t know what to do with that. Was he actually interested?

“Yeah.” In her? It seemed like the vibe she was getting. She couldn’t help but grin inanely at him. He really was quite attractive, with that grumpy, gruff exterior. This was great, this was-

“Studying, or other geek-related things?”

-obviously not what she thought it was.

She looked at the floor and tried desperately not to turn red. “Oh. Uh. Yeah, I guess.”

Right. She was a geek and he was…not. Or at least that’s probably what he thought.

Why did she always have to get her hopes up? Why?

She felt his fingers brush her elbow. “Hey, do you”-

She brought her head back up and smiled again. Way too brightly. “Why don’t you go ahead of me? I forgot something I have to get in my apartment before class, so I have to go.”

She shuffled around him, all the while not looking him in the face. If she could just get out of there with her dignity intact, she could forget the whole thing ever happened.

“Wait, don’t you want your coffee?”

“You know, silly me, I have coffee in my apartment. Can you believe it? Well, you know us geeks, we just, um, get focused on the goal. Yeah, you know.”

Had she been less focused on the goal of avoiding any kind of visual contact, she would have seen the look of understanding dawn across his face, followed by chagrin, coming closely on the heels of regret.

But she _was_ a geek, and she was _really_ focused on that goal.

“Hang on”-

“Bye!”

And out the door she went.

\-----

She’d been moping for most of the day.

So what if he’d called her a geek? It wasn’t that big a deal. She’d been called a geek before, and she wasn’t twelve, damn it.

But still. She liked the guy. And it had made her feel small.

The same thoughts had been turning over in head on and off all day, and it was starting to get on her nerves. Almost as much as Daniel and Rodney, who had come over supposedly to study, but had really just wanted real food to eat between arguing over who was the better engineer: Scotty or La Forge?

“Hey, what’s wrong?” She felt an elbow nudge her side and looked over to find that Liz had joined her on the sofa.

She shrugged. “Nothing, really.”

Her roommate frowned. “Sure?”

She sighed, and leaned her head back against the cushion in the hopes of forestalling the headache she could feel coming. “I don’t know. I had a conversation with a guy that I thought was going one way, but ended up going somewhere completely different.”

“How so?”

She really didn’t want to talk about this. Especially since she’d seemed to have gotten the interest of the boys. “Nothing. He just said something I wasn’t expecting.”

“Like what?” Oh, why did Liz have to be so sympathetic? Why did the boys have to look so concerned?

She finally replied reluctantly. “He called me a geek.”

Daniel blinked at her, as if he had been waiting for something else and her answer wasn’t it. “You _are_ a geek.”

She started to say that that wasn’t point, but was preempted by Rodney.

“Yeah, this coming from a guy who once got matching D&D spell tattoos with a girlfriend he only had for three weeks.”

“They were fake tattoos!”

“And that makes it better, how?”

Sam looked through her hands at Liz. “Make them leave.”

Not long after Liz had ushered the guys out the door with the promise to bring them mini pizza bagels, Sam had an epiphany.

Daniel was right. She _was_ a geek.

She’d never been ashamed of it before. Maybe from time to time she wished she could offset her geekiness with things like grace, a sparkling wit, and the ability to tweeze her own eyebrows, but so what?

She was who she was. It was time she claimed it.

She’d show _him_ Geek. And she knew just how to start.

Chortling to herself, and ignoring the strange looks she was getting from Liz, she marched across the hallway and pounded on the guys’ door.

Rodney swung open the door and fixed her with an annoyed, ‘you-just-threw-us-out-now-what-do-you-want’ look.

She beamed him with her most charming smile. “Hey, sorry. I forgot to mention that I talked to Mr. O’Neill earlier today about the electricity problem we keep having. He said he wanted to do something about it, but he really needed a lesson on the mechanics of it, you know, the wiring and the fuse box, and the mechanics of the electrical system in general.”

Rodney eyed her skeptically. “Really.”

“Yeah, and he said he thought you were the best person to talk to about it, but knew you were really busy with everything and didn’t want to bother you.” 

She watched him get that familiar pleased, over-important look on his face. “Anyway, I just though I’d mention it to you, in case you wanted to help him out.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

“Really? I know he’d appreciate it.”

“Of course. I’ll go see him right now.” He stepped back inside to get the copious amount of notes she knew he’d made on the problem in the last few months.

She grinned slowly. Some might even say evilly. “Great.”

And so it began.

\-----

The following night, around 3 am, someone called the private line to her room.

She counted 42 times before she yanked the phone cord out of the wall.

\-----

That morning, she stole Jack’s mail and replaced everything (except his bills) with scientific journals she picked up at the stand down the street.

Then she hacked into his computer, deleted all of his games, and replaced them with Asteroids and Pong.

\-----

That afternoon she went downstairs to find that someone had stolen her $450 Schwinn and replaced it with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tricycle.

\-----

The next day she stole the master keys from the front desk and relabeled every key.

\-----

The day after that she and Liz invited Ronon, Carson, John, Cameron, Rodney, Daniel, Vala and Janet over for a poker game.

Of course, Sam had a paper to finish and Rodney and Daniel hated poker, so really it was just a guise to hang out with the 4th Floor Five for a while.

She was half-listening to (and enjoying) the barbs flying between the players at the poker table when Rodney called from couch behind her.

“Hey Sam.” 

He sounded confused, and that alone was enough to get her attention away from her paper. “What?”

“You don’t appear to have the Science Channel.”

Liz got up from the card table. Telling the tenants in apartment 320 that they'd lost the Science Channel was like telling a 6 year-old that their beloved poodle Wiggles had just died. “What? We should have the whole Science and Nature package.”

“No, it looks like you have the whole Dumb Jock package.” McKay handed the remote over to Janet, apparently bored with it.

“That can’t be right. I didn’t…” And then it dawned on Sam. “I don’t believe it.”

Liz’s eyes widened. “He didn’t. You don’t think Mr. O’Neill…”

Staring at the television in disbelief, Sam nodded. “I think he did.” 

Cameron, still holding his cards, looked fascinated. “I didn’t know 213 sports channels _existed_.”

Janet continued to surf the channels. “I think he included some foreign language channels.”

Liz sounded a little freaked out. “Can he do that?”

“I guess so.” Sam surveyed the television, although she would never admit to it, had to catch her breath. This was seriously impressive. And, well, a little hot. What the hell was the matter with her?

“If this keeps up, you are going to _have_ to have sex with him,” said Vala, who sounded amazed. Which actually made Sam feel better.

“Tell me about it,” she muttered.

“That’s it? That’s what it takes?” Rodney squeaked. “A few stupid practical jokes that take all the planning of a really stupid cable man and you’re ready to do the horizontal polka with the guy?”

There was silence as Rodney processed what he had said and who he had said it to. Then he began to look as if he was trying to shrink himself through sheer concentration.

“I’m uncomfortable,” Carson said to no one. 

Next to him, Ronon leaned over and muttered something that sounded like “Run,” at which point everyone but the women and Rodney hastily exited the room.

“I’m never dating anyone in this building, am I?”

“I think that’s a fair assumption,” Janet replied mildly.

Rodney turned on his heel and went out the door without another word to anyone, although he could be heard yelling “Idiot!” just before his apartment door closed.

The women sat down to watch.

\-----

Early the following morning, while Jack was out repairing the floor boards outside 414 (she knew because she’d broken the boards, and then made Janet report it), she picked the lock in his door and stole every sports-related object out of his apartment.

She replaced them with old lecture notices and conference announcements from the college, and a number of books and instruments she no longer used. She put a huge black and white poster of Einstein on the ceiling above his bed.

Then she reprogrammed the alarms stored in his clock for good measure.

\-----

“How did it start, exactly?” Cam said, having pushed to the front of the crowd staring at the scene before them.

“No one seems to know.” Daniel replied, trying to reign in his amusement. “But it does appear to be escalating.”

“What is going on out here? Did Sam set fire to the… _where the hell is my door?_ ”

“Hey Liz,” Rodney called cheerfully. “Bit drafty in here, isn’t it?”

Sure enough, the door to Sam and Liz’s apartment was gone. Missing. Hinges and all.

As were all the rest of the doors.

“ _SAM!_ ”

\-----

“This isn’t my fault!” Sam threw her arms up, more for defense against the deadly shards of carrot being thrown up by Liz’s wild chopping than for any kind of emphasis.

“Yes it is! You’re the one who started this…this _war_ you’ve got going with our landlord!”

“Well, actually, he started it. And why am I getting blamed for this? He’s the one who stole the damned doors!”

Liz held up one the knife and pointed it at Sam’s face. She took a weary step backwards.

Liz looked at the knife, and set it down quickly. Then took a calming breath. “I don’t care who started it. I have work. I have studying. I have…carrots. I need privacy, and some small measure of sanity. I can’t live like this!”

Sam cleared her throat. “Now, I really don’t think it’s so bad, what with”-

“ _Look at our apartment!_ ”

Sam did. Thankfully, from the kitchen one couldn’t see their bedrooms, but then one stayed fairly distracted with the kitchen since Jack had managed to steal every single one of the cabinet doors.

Damn the man.

There was a cough outside, and their attention was drawn to the entryway, where about 10 or 15 of their neighbors remained outside watching.

Cassie grinned at them toothily. Sam waved weakly.

“It’s like living in an Ajax commercial!”

Wincing at the increasing volume of Liz’s volume, she wiggled a finger in her ear. “Wow, that’s a really obscure ref”-

“Fix. This.” Liz said between clenched teeth.

She felt a swell of stubborn pride just at the mention. “I am not giving in to that…that _man_ just because”-

A maniacal gleam came to Liz’s eyes, forcing Sam to stop and swallow quickly. “Yes, yes you will.” Liz stepped forward and lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “Or I swear to God I will out your My Little Pony collection to John and Cameron.”

Sam felt all the blood drain from her face. “I’ll go right now.”

“Thank you,” Liz replied sweetly, and went back to chopping carrots.

\-----

“You!” Sam yelled across the lobby, heedless of the several innocent bystanders already talking to Jack.

Looking resigned, if not annoyed, he quickly shooed away whoever he was talking to. And since he was really only paying attention to the blond woman with flushed cheeks coming towards him, he didn’t notice that those same tenants merely went to stand discreetly in a corner. Or that a few pulled out their cell phones.

“Yes?” he asked politely. Irritatingly so.

“What are you _doing_ , you demented little superintendent of a man!” She stopped just a few feet short of him, hands on hips.

“Demented little superintendent of man?” He repeated sounding extremely amused.

“Don’t get cute with me. I have three floors of people standing in my doorway watching every move Liz and I make. Every ten minutes I have to call T down to bounce people out of my apartment. Are you happy? You’ve turned my home into Studio 54.”

“You should sell tickets.”

Any minute now she’d start spouting pea soup. “This isn’t funny. I demand an apology.”

“You know, I think I’m the one who should be getting an apology, actually.”

Sam had to take a moment. And then, “Why?”

He waved a hand. “You picked my lock! You stole my stuff!”

“You _dismantled_ my _apartment_.”

“Yeah, well, you deserved it!”

They were toe to toe now. “So did you!”

“For what? Just because I called you a geek?”

Okay, that sounded a little stupid now. Misdirection, misdirection! 

Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times. “We- Well, look who’s talking.”

Now he was just confused. “Huh?”

If only she had thought of this before. “You’re just as much of a nerd as any of us are.”

Jack leaned in a little bit, making her nervous and unsettled…in a completely different way. “How do ya figure?”

But she was warming to the topic. “You used to be a star hockey player, and…”

She saw he looked a little stricken. “Yeah, that cable thing backfired on you, didn’t it? You should be off somewhere coaching! You could have coached any minor league team you wanted, and made pretty good money doing it. But no, instead you’re here, managing an apartment building with 90 year-old wiring and an elevator that only works on leap years.”

His face was unreadable. “That’s not”-

No, no, no, no, no! Must stay on topic or lose the precarious high ground! 

“And- and you know what I think? I think you like it. I think you prefer to be here, hanging out with geeky grad students who get turned on by science and a 240 pound short-order cook who knows mixed martial arts, and old Air Force jocks, and…oh, who the hell knows what Vala does.”

She let a beat pass before she finished him off. “And what’s with the Mary Steenburgen posters? I mean, _seriously_.”

His mouth fell open. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones!”

“Neither should people who have no doors!”

_“Well, I want them back!”_

“Fine. I want _my_ stuff back!”

“Fine!”

“Okay! Are we done!”

“Yes!”

“Alright! Then we can stop yelling-” he stopped, and then spoke in a normal tone. “…now.”

They stood breathing heavily for a moment, and Sam calculated the distance to his place with the amount of time it would take to get her clothes off and decided to see if he’d go for the couch three feet away instead.

But then she noticed something.

Oh yeah, they were still in the lobby. Surrounded now by about 50 or 60 people.

She turned around until she was shoulder to shoulder with Jack facing everyone. There were a few seconds when everyone just seemed to stare at each other.

Carson cleared his throat. “Again, uncomfortable.”


End file.
